He Won’t Back Down (Part 2 of 2)

The Bible makes it clear that God's ways are perfect, His plan is perfect, and He often uses a variety of people and unusual means to fulfill His purposes. Today on Truth for Life, we'll see how God protected David, His anointed servant, despite the mounting tension with Saul, the reigning king. Alistair Begg is teaching from chapter 19 in 1 Samuel. The opposition comes from Saul, the intervention comes from Jonathan, and the restoration is enjoyed by David. Look at the final sentence of verse 7. And Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as before.

I underlined that as before, because I wanted to say to myself, Yeah, I bet it was as before. And you go into verse 8, and it was. So, the protection of God for his anointed by the intervention of John. Secondly, by the evasion of David himself.

The pattern repeats itself. The Philistines are there. The war is an ongoing rumble. David goes out, verse 8, fights with the Philistine, strikes them with a great blow, so that they fled before him. And once again, what ought to be the cause for rejoicing throughout the entire community becomes an occasion for dark and murderous thoughts—for the dog days, if you like.

I think it was Churchill who referred to those days as the dog days, where there was a blackness and a darkness fell over him, and promoted by his jealousy. Once again, he descends to murderous thoughts. Think about it. As long as the Lord lives, he will not die.

We don't know how much time elapsed. Between verse 7 and verse 8, whatever it was, it was enough time for Saul to realize, No, I still want him dead. Where do these murderous thoughts come from? Why do people murder? If they don't murder another, why do they seek to murder themselves? What is it that draws people into such dark passages that from their very essence they find that they cannot escape?

Every attempt by secular psychology to explain it and to fix it will eventually have to bow before the clear instruction of Scripture. Let not the king sin. And what does he do? He says, I'm choosing sin. I'm going to make sure that the torment and the jealousy and the malevolence that I feel is expressed in the destruction of David. That's verse 9, a harmful spirit, from the Lord came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand. In contemporary terms, he's like a man who doesn't know who he is, where he is, or what he is, sitting, watching the TV with no sound, and he sits with a handgun in his hand.

That's the picture. Don't be waylaid by thinking of a spear and, well, we don't know spears. No, we've got plenty of ways to spear people. And so it is that if he had been a better aim, if David had not been so fleet of foot, then we could have ended the story there at verse 10.

Some of you are saying, Oh, I wish they had. Not so fast! And David fled and escaped that night. He knows when to walk away.

He knows when to run. Actually, David fled never to return to Saul's house. He lived as a fugitive until the death of Saul.

This was a pivotal moment. This, if you like, in terms of Saul's own encounter with the Lord's anointed. If ever there was an opportunity for him to resolve the issue and to realize deep down inside that he is this one who has been chosen by God, who is better than me, the opportunity was there. But there he sits—pathetic picture, actually—with an embedded spear, sitting there in his chair, looking at the wall.

And that's the evidence of his endeavors. Did he take it out himself? Did he call for his servants? And the servants came and said, How did this happen? Did he lie about it?

Who knows? But God was protecting his anointed. Thirdly, by the deception of Michal. Because Saul sent immediately messengers to David's house to watch him, hit men to case the joint. And Michal, who is the daughter of Saul, now plans not the great escape, but it's certainly a jolly good escape. And here in these verses, she uses the old pillow-under-the-dove trick. And with the help of an image or an idol that she has sitting around in the house—why it was there, we don't know—she dresses the whole thing up and sets it in position. She does this, having told her husband, David, if you don't escape with your life tonight, verse 11, tomorrow you'll be killed. So the word had filtered through to her.

We don't know exactly how, but it wouldn't be difficult. And so Michal, in verse 12, let David down through the window. Unlike she who came in through the bathroom window, he now exits through the bathroom window and fled away and escaped.

It's quite a touching, strange picture, isn't it? This fellow who fought Goliath and took him down in the might and majesty of God's enabling—you see him crawling out through the window. It's interesting, too, that, you know, when you get to Paul, and when Paul gets led in a basket, down through the window. And that's in chapter 11, I think, of 2 Corinthians. It says that he was led down in a basket. And you get to chapter 12, and it says, There was a man who was caught up in the Spirit. You see, that's the key. It's going down in the basket. That is the precursor to being caught up in the Spirit. Some of us, you see, we don't want to go down in the basket.

We don't want to go down at all. Here the king, the Lord's anointed, suffers the ignominy of having his wife let him down in this way, and then having her do this amazing cover-up in verse 13. So much so that verse 14, when Saul sent messengers to take David, she lied. She said, He's sick. Presumably, that word would have then caused the response in verse 15, then Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, Well, in that case, bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.

It's quite remarkable, isn't it? Just bring the whole kit and caboodle, I'll kill him in the bed! That's what he's saying. We don't… Don't be nice about this anymore. I'm done with this idea of, you know, the Philistines doing it so that I can be clear of it.

Just go get him, get him in the bed, bring him over here, and let's take care of it once and for all. I wonder were the servants pleased to discover that it was a dummy in the bed. Well, why did you say that? Well, because it says, Oh, the servants loved David. They loved David, and they served Saul the king. I don't know.

Then you have this amazing father-daughter moment. And when the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed with a pillow of goats here at its head. It's quite funny. And Saul said to Michal, Why have you deceived me thus?

Well, that's pretty rich coming from him, isn't it? Well, his whole thing is based on deception. Why have you deceived me? Why did you let my enemy go?

Well, his enemy is actually God. Why didn't Michal say, Hey, that's my husband you're talking about, and I let him escape because I love him? Hmm!

I don't know. I can only assume that the fear which gripped Saul and led to his hostility may well have been the fear which overwhelmed Michal and led to her duplicity. Some people get really stalled out over the fact that she's telling lies. She's not the only lady that tells lies in the Old Testament narrative in order that the unfolding plan of God may be accomplished.

We won't delay here. All that you really need to think is that what we have here is the record of what happened. It is not here given to us as an example to follow. That brings us, finally, to the fourth way in which God protects his anointed—first by John's intervention, then by David's evasion, then by Michal's deception, and finally, by the Spirit's invasion. God's overruling hand is overt here. David heads off, we're told, to Samuel at Ramah. Ramah would only be a couple of miles away from where Saul lived.

Therefore, it's not a big distance. And it's interesting that David now heads for Samuel. After all, Samuel was there at the very beginning of this adventure. Samuel was the one who came and anointed him back in chapter 16. And we're told that as he reaches Ramah, he tells Samuel all that Saul had done to him.

And the two of them settle in together. Whatever Nahath is, we don't know. It might be like Bethany, a little tiny community. It might be a gathering of shepherd's huts. It might be a special place where the community of the prophets met.

We don't know. It's near Ramah. Behold, David is at Ramah. And the word got back to Saul, verse 19.

And so, once again, off the messenger's go. And instead of taking David, they are caught up in this amazing encounter. Verse 20, look at the text. When they saw the company of the prophets prophesying and Samuel standing his head over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. Well, that wasn't what was supposed to happen. And so, when that was reported to Saul in verse 21, he sent another group of messengers. And guess what?

The same deal. And Saul sent a third group of messengers, and they did the same thing. This is so good. It's a bit like, you know… It's like, Daddy bears chair, Mummy bears chair, and Baby bears chair. It's like, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down. It's the development of a story.

It's fantastic. It's not invented, but it's very skillful in the way it's told. It could simply have had one sentence that said, And all the people went there, and there was a great hullabaloo, and none of them did what they were told to do. But that's not as good as the way it was when you read it. And the first group went, and they prophesied.

You're going, What does that mean? And the second group, they showed up, they did the same thing. And the third group showed up, and they were doing it as well.

All that we know is this. We don't know whether they were rejoicing or whether they were raving in terms of this prophetic encounter. But what was happening was that by means of the Spirit of God, they were neutralized. They were unable to go about their business.

They were caught up in a way that took them out of the realm of normal engagement, normal interchange of things. And so it's no surprise that when you get to verse 22, if you want a job doing, then what do you say? Do it yourself. And so he says, Well, I'll go. I'll take care of this. And then he himself went to Ramah and came to the great well that is in Sekhu. See how the story slows down? It's good.

It's very good storytelling. What about the great well? We don't know what the great well was, where it was.

It was significant, though. That's where he came to. So you don't have the picture of it, and he marched straight up to the front door, and he says, Listen, I don't know what the carrion is here, but I'm here to take… No. He went to the well at Sekhu, and he asked, Where are Samuel and David? So he actually knows less than the servants.

They at least got to the destination. If you track back in the story, you know that he is found asking similar questions. Remember, he said, Where is the seer? Where can I see the seer?

You have this picture of sort of profound cluelessness. And so they told him, Well, this is where he is. In verse 23, And he went there to Nahath and Ramah, and the Spirit of God came upon him also. So he, like his servants before him, is overwhelmed by the Spirit of God. And whatever is happening here seems to be very different from what had happened to him way back in chapter 10, when the Spirit of God had rushed upon him. In that context, the response was still the same. As we find here, the people said, Is Saul among the prophets now? That's what he said in 10. That's the word still said. But look at the picture in verse 24.

What a pathetic picture. And he too stripped off his clothes. Why does it say he too stripped off his clothes? Well, it must mean that other people were stripping off their clothes. Or that the writer wants us to think back to the way in which, at the beginning of chapter 18, Jonathan took off his clothes. He took off his clothes as a sign of abdication, as a sign of devotion. Maybe. Or maybe this ecstatic frenzy that was going on had people all taken off their clothes.

In other words, it's a pretty pathetic setup. But what a picture! And he too prophesied before Samuel and lay naked all that day and all that night. So you have a picture of him sitting in his room, looking at the spear that is being embedded in the wall, a testimony to his malevolent hatred of the Lord's anointed. And then you have the picture of him lying naked, whatever he was saying and whatever he was doing, causing people to say, Is he actually among the prophets too? Well, we have to end it here. But let's end where we began. What is happening in this? Saul is opposing and seeking to destroy the Lord's anointed.

Why? After all, David has only ever done him good. It's true, but still he saw him as a threat. By contrast, Jonathan loved him as a friend. Jonathan was prepared to disrobe the signs of his potential princedom and rejoice in the kingship of David. Now, we made the connection—I hope it's still there in your mind—between the reaction and hostility of Saul, the love and affection of Jonathan, and the way it points forward to Jesus.

Because remember, when Jesus came, the reaction was the same. Some said, Let's kill him. He's a threat. While others came to love him as the best of friends, it is impossible to be neutral concerning the Lord's anointed. You cannot walk out of this building in neutrality.

You either walk out saying, No, he is a threat to me. If I bow under his authority, that means that morally I am under the direction of the Bible. That means that in every way I will then do what he, the Lord and King, demands.

It's quite amazing, isn't it? David had never done him any harm. And in that day, when they cried, Crucify him! Crucify him! You mean this gentle shepherd who took the children on his lap? You mean this man who spoke so graciously to the woman who'd had five husbands and was living with a guy? You mean this man who called the little thief down from the Sycamore tree?

This man? What has he ever done that you or I would live in an ongoing spirit of rebellion and say, Yeah, I heard you, but no, I won't back down? The choice is yours. Today, if you hear God's voice—and I know you can hear my voice—today, if you hear God's voice, do not harden your heart. We have a closing hymn, but we're not going to sing it.

But I would like to read it for you. I had two songs. One was No, I Won't Back Down, and the other was by George Matheson, who was born in a very great city—Glasgow, Scotland—in the nineteenth century.

He studied at Edinburgh. He lost sight of his eyes in his teenage years, and he wrote a number of hymns included in those hymns—this hymn. And it goes like this. Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword, and I shall conquer be. I sink in life's alarms, when by myself I stand. Imprison me within thine arms, and strong shall be my stand. My heart is weak and poor until it master find.

It has no spring of action, sure it changes with the wind. It cannot freely move till thou hast wrought its chain. Enslave it with thy matchless love, and deathless it shall reign. My will is not mine own till thou hast made it thine.

If it would reach a monarch's throne, it must its crown resign. It only stands unbent amid the clashing strife, till on your bosom it has leant, and found in thee its life. What a masterful use of paradox!

What a wonderful response! If today you hear God's voice, and you say, I'm changing sides, I am moving from the rebellious track to the track of those who are declaring Christ as King. That is Alistair Begg explaining why it's impossible to remain neutral when it comes to Jesus. You're listening to Truth for Life.

Alistair returns in just a moment to close today's program. Our study in 1 Samuel makes it increasingly clear just how important it is to really understand God's word so that our lives can reflect His truth. Here at Truth for Life, teaching the Bible is at the heart of everything we do. Our mission is to teach the Scriptures with clarity and relevance every single day, and to encourage other pastors to preach the Bible as well. We trust that God will use the teaching of His word to convert unbelievers to become followers of Christ, and to bolster the faith of those who already believe.

And as this happens, our prayer is that local churches will be strengthened. That's the mission you're supporting when you pray for and when you donate to Truth for Life. We'd love for you to tell us how the teaching of God's word has transformed your life, and let us know that you're standing with us by giving a donation.

Call us at 888-588-7884, or you can reach us online at truthforlife.org. When you make a donation today, we want to say thank you by encouraging you to request an intriguing book called The Air We Breathe. This book explains how Christianity has changed the value system of our world. In the book, you'll see that the values we take for granted, things like compassion, freedom, and progress, are actually ideas that Jesus taught, ideas that would have been quite strange if Jesus hadn't taught us differently. This is a book you'll find encouraging as you learn more about the incredible influence that Christianity, and Jesus in particular, had on the way we view our world. Ask for your copy of the book The Air We Breathe today when you give a donation to support the teaching ministry of Truth for Life.

Visit truthforlife.org slash donate, or call us at 888-588-7884. Now here is Alistair to close with prayer. Father, your word is fixed in the heavens, and we receive it as from your lips. And we pray that you will, even in these closing moments of our time, sow work within our hearts and minds, that we may give up, as it were, the sword or spear of our rebellion, and bid you take your rightful place on the throne of our hearts. For Christ's sake. Amen.

I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening today. Challenging circumstances can sometimes test our loyalty to friends or family. Hard times can even cause us to question our faith. So how do we respond when we find ourselves in life's valleys? We'll find out tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.